


'Much I have seen and known'

by je_t_oublie



Series: Tis Not Too Late [3]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen, Kira's view of Julian leaving, No Dialogue, References to Kira's time in the rebellion, implied Ezri/Kira, references to body parts failing more metaphorical than literal but beware, the disintegration of found family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 18:47:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19179256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/je_t_oublie/pseuds/je_t_oublie
Summary: Kira has been waiting. There was only so long before they would fall apart.Kira's impression on Julian leaving for Cardassia. Part of the 'This Not Too Late series.





	'Much I have seen and known'

**Author's Note:**

> "Much I have seen and known; cities of men  
> And manners, climates, councils, governments,  
> Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;  
> And drunk delight of battle with my peers,  
> Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy."  
> Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ulysses.

Kira Nerys had known what was coming. No, not the brutal and abrupt end to their war with the Dominion, nor the Prophets taking the Bajoran emissary. But, months later, the station filling up with voices and faces from a hundred different planets and cultures, there were only a few that had stayed. Quark, wiping the bar, would stop and complain how he just hadn’t been able to get the right supplies since Bajor lost their emissary, and did she remember the shipment of illegal Danian spiked cherries he had snuck in when Odo had been away? It just wasn’t as fun getting past the new security, and she would narrow her eyes, threaten him, but both of them knew there wasn’t the dedication behind it. 

Julian had cut down his unauthorised visits to Ops, appearing only when needed for meetings and then his speech would always be too fast, too brittle, and damn she did not have patience for this but tried to extend it anyway, trying for one of the last members of a family that had clawed itself together. It was easier though, when he kept to only his rooms or office, every corner of the station as haunted for him as it was for her. 

There was only Ezri that she could lean on, who could take her weight for a few brief moments and that Kira could extend the same grace to when Ezri appeared in her quarters with haunted eyes and stories of childhoods with pronouns that changed between breaths. Then she would lay down the padd and let Ezri curl as close on the couch as she needed and just listen. They may not have had their history exactly together, but even when the learned Trill detachment from past feelings wavered and sparks of Jadzia, of past lives she had never known showed, Kira stamped down on the feelings of loss, could understand Ezri’s desire for her to grow into herself past the need to just hold the pieces together when a war needed their skills more than their individual selves. The warmth against her side helped with her own cracks when her hands trembled with the desire to stroke Kirayoshi's hair one last time across the light years. 

But when the new Chief of Security brought her a file flagged by the system (and she couldn’t think of him as a friend yet, could see only the things that were missing from Odo,) an incoming file from Cardassia encrypted with a flair and sense of tailoring she recognised, and Julian appeared at the door to her quarters, lips pressed tightly together and a list of suggested replacements in hand, there was little she could do but let him sit silently across from her for awhile. She had learned to fight against uneven odds before she could walk, had been birthed into fire, but this was a battle she would stand back from, a silent observer. The brittleness had been replaced with steeliness and, thank the Prophets, quiet. She would never be the advisor Sisko had been, but that didn't mean she couldn’t see when action was needed and Prophets, lend her their strength, because she was not, would never be, one for patience. When he spoke, at last, it was the desire to stay with what family he had left here, to not scatter them even further but here was somewhere he was needed, someone who needed him (and even though Kira knew from nights in a basement and days in caves training the rebels that Garak would never say something in so many words, there was a very specific someone that needed him in that somewhere Julian spoke of.) She just smiled, asked him whether he’d packed his bags for the frontier, and cracked just a tiny bit more. 

She allowed him the space of his quarters, the tiny memorial to what had been his life on the station, and because she remembered how important it had been when she had been in the rebels to carefully ration what one carried, every item in their packs one that would add to the weight of their footsteps, that would grow infinitesimally heavier every moment they walked to become a huge boulder weighing down her spine till she feared the Cardassians would hear it when it splintered. There wasn’t a pack she could remove now, but the creaking of her spine had become part of the natural settling of the station, just another note in the symphony alongside the lights buzzing and the hiss of airlocks. She signed out a shuttle, listed Julian as under personal leave, whereabouts and length unknown, and knocked on the door to Ezri's quarters for one last reassurance there would be at least one member of their makeshift family she could come back to. It wasn’t a surprise to her either.

**Author's Note:**

> This began as only the line about a younger Kira's fear her spine splintering would be loud enough to alert the Cardassians. 
> 
> No, I don't know why my brain dug that up but discomforting.


End file.
